Managing hybrid IT

Searching for the right blend of desktop and cloud

Despite the inexorable progress of the cloud across IT systems, many businesses are taking a cautious approach to cloud based services. They are opting for a stepped migration in which hybrid platforms are developed, combining the convenience of the cloud with traditional installed systems for added security.

A move to SaaS (software as a service) platforms is delivering cost savings and efficiency improvements, and CRM and web analytics, for instance, are ideally suited for cloud based operations.

Private clouds have been developed for the mission critical and data sensitive areas of a business for which public clouds may not be appropriate, but even here installed systems are still in existence. Managing this trinity is the focus for hybrid IT management.

Gartner has highlighted this in a report on hybrid IT. On its release, managing vice president Chris Howard said: "Many organisations have now passed the definitional stage of cloud computing and are testing cloud architectures inside and outside the enterprise and, over time, the cloud will simply become one of the ways that we 'do' computing, and workloads will move around in hybrid internal/external IT environments.

"As a result, the traditional role of the enterprise IT professional is changing and becoming multifaceted. A hybrid IT model requires internal and external IT professionals to support the business capabilities of the enterprise."

Mind the gap

IT managers are thinking carefully about the level of integration between cloud and non-cloud systems, and in the rush to adopt cloud services it can be easy to miss that the cloud still has to go some way to match the features that current client-server platforms can offer.

They need to ask themselves what defines the gap between these legacy systems and the new cloud services. It's bridging that gap efficiently that will be the main driver this year.

Mitigating risk is also a major focus in the development of hybrid IT platforms. There is a need to decide which services can move to the cloud and which should stay behind a business's firewall, with an emphasis on user access and security.

This all provides a challenge, but there are clear benefits in sight. In its Cloud Integration for Hybrid IT report, data integration company Informatica states: "A unified, hybrid data integration platform enables IT organisations to realise even greater efficiency and productivity benefits when it comes to cloud application integration initiatives.

"If implemented and managed properly, business analysts and cloud application administrators have real time, secure access to data contained in on-premise systems, databases and social as well as other cloud application data sources without getting slowed down by the IT backlog. Meanwhile, IT stakeholders are able to maintain governance and control over mission-critical business applications."

It is also important that, in companies with a chief information officer, they are involved in the process.

Ernst & Young has addressed the issue in an insights paper on hybrid IT, in which it points out: "The CIO now needs to be a part of allocation and prioritisation discussions and decisions (such as when to expense versus when to capitalise IT investments). The CIO also needs to determine which parts of an organisation's IT infrastructure should remain in-house and which pieces can be managed by external vendors or service providers.

"This new paradigm can maximise the advantages new technology, pricing models and service level agreements bring to organisations — without compromising the stability, security or integrity upon which the business relies to achieve performance and growth objectives."

A study from Capgemini claims that over 80% of companies are now using some form of cloud based services. But most of this activity is with new business services and not the migration of legacy systems to the cloud, as this can be expensive and time consuming.